


Reincarnation

by barghest



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: ALWAYS W THE METAHPROS SELF, Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blackwatch Era, Canon-Typical Violence, Dad Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Dragon Genji Shimada, Dragons, Extended Metaphors, Fire, Gen, Resurrection, i guess, in a way lel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 02:01:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8184793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barghest/pseuds/barghest
Summary: a friend asked, what if the way genji and gabriel were rebuilt was swapped around? and like any good friend who is procrastinating real work, i answered.(this covers just genji.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> anyway yeah, this is for a twitter buddy (@lhavellan) bc they love genji a lot and they...encouraged my ignoring work to write genji sadwatch (like sadstuck but overwatch ya feel). the idea was, what if genji is turned into the vape ghost whereas gabe is made into the cyborg? lets find out how that messes up genjis psyche, huzzah. perspective changes w every section, but i think its pretty clear whos who.  
> enjoy. :v

The kid is small when he is finally released from the medical bay, somehow smaller than the battered near-corpse they had dragged in more than a week ago, even with new arms and legs and two eyes that burnt through anyone who met their gaze. Gabriel Reyes is the only one who does not look away from the youth, who gently smoulders at all times, hands blackened from the process that brought him back from the dead. The mechanics of resurrection are yet to be perfected, Dr. Ziegler tells Gabriel, when he collects the kid's medical reports. In time, he will be fine.

Gabriel doubts that.

He calls him 'kid' when they enlist him in Blackwatch - McCree is just two years older than the newest recruit, who spits his name (Genji) when it's asked of him. If McCree is still a kid, then this is a child, already just as torn apart by the world as Jesse was when he was picked up. The fire that burns within him is different, though - betrayal is the story in his case file, a rich family that left him to blaze into nothing when he wouldn't fit their ideals, and now he hurts, and hurts, and hurts. Jesse hides his pain in laughs, in the smell of gunsmoke and the bottom of a beer bottle. Genji lets it fester in his limbs, in the heat behind his eyes and the way he rips practice targets to shreds on the range.

He pants and he balls his hands into fists and he heaves - and his fingers begin to turn to smoke, drifting away from him, his arms fading from sight - and suddenly he's sobbing, tears hot and angry, knees wobbly. Gabriel has to stride across from his watchpoint, arms closing around Genji's waist as the kid threatens to topple over like a crumbling smokestack, ghostly in the afternoon sun.

"Easy, easy," Gabriel holds him up, even as Genji's legs give away and his face is a mess of tear streaks and fury, white hot fury, molten deep inside him. It threatens to erupt and spill into Gabriel's hands, burning him, but instead Genji just shakes. He shakes in his superior officer's arms for several minutes, wisps of his hands clawing at his cheeks. He crumples himself up and retches, and retches again. It's a long five minutes in Gabriel's arms. "Take your time, kid," he murmurs, and it seems to rouse the child in his arms (he's twenty five but he could be sixteen, his cheeks still round, singed fluff clinging to his jaw). He holds steady until Genji can stand on his own again.

His fingers are long shadows that reach out before him, tendrils of evening that are unable to hold a sword. Gabriel dismisses him for the day, and watches as those hands stretch and stretch and spring back into shape, swinging at the side of his newest recruit. He is only two weeks out of medical care.

"Jesse, keep an eye on him," he is quiet, targeting McCree over dinner, slinking past as the soldier digs into his meal. One kid looking after another.

"Sure thing, boss," McCree gives him a two fingered salute in answer, and moves to sit next to Genji on the otherwise empty table. His efforts at conversation are valiant, but the kid from Hanamura is slow to bite. Gabriel finds himself unable to watch. He is sending these children to war, and he finds that hard to stomach.

"He'll be fine with time," Dr. Ziegler assures him again when he asks her. "He just needs to adjust."

Adjust? The kid disintegrates when things get too much - both mentally and physically. A cushy upbringing in the shadow of one of Japan's most notorious crime families (Gabriel does some digging) hardly prepares him for something like this, and it's understandable. What can really prepare anyone for reincarnation into an unstable body, that falls apart to the touch. The pieces can be pulled back into place, sure, he can grit his teeth and patch himself up and inhale the smoke of his own being - but it is hardly an existence one gets used to easily. Gabriel can know this, even without asking. He can sympathize, even if he can never truly know how it is to be Genji.

He realises this in the field, the third time they take Genji on a mission. For the first two, he is quiet, reserved, a quick hand with a sword and an obedient guard when needed. A model child soldier. It is this third mission that Gabriel pulls the kid with the fading green hair to the front, taking him along with McCree and a handful of other seasoned officers into the inner sanctum of their target. A nest of vipers, in the pay of rising hate group, home soil terrorism that sought to push civil rights back a century or so. Gabriel is having none of that. They are here on a pest control mission, which Overwatch itself takes on the higher ups. Standard dirty work.

They are slaughtered. The opposition is well prepared, and Gabriel sees his soldiers cut down - good men and women, and Jesse, who screams like a child when a wall is dropped on him. Jesse, whose whimpers tell him he's still alive under the rubble, colouring the brickwork red with blood from his arm. Gabriel staggers towards him, it's only them now; him, Jesse, who wants his stupid hat back, him and Jesse and Genji--

He did not see Genji go down. And from the ashes of the building, he sees Genji emerge - tearing out of his Blackwatch gear, bursting through the seams, all scales and claws and fire, fire in his eyes - he howls past them and through the mercenaries, and Gabriel can't see in the smoke and dust he throws up, he's blind - there is flashes and thunder and the most god-awful screaming. Screaming that rattles in his skull, that he feels in his bones when he moves, sounds that wrap around his limb and squeeze his throat tight shut as they echo through the air - it comes from everywhere and nowhere, no human mouth producing the noise that follows the Genji-thing through the building as he tears apart those in his path - no wall or flesh barrier strong enough to withstand the horror.

Genji doesn't speak on the journey home, staring out the window of the craft the whole way, wrapped in a shock blanket. He is not in shock - it seems - but it is all they have, his uniform gone in the blaze they left the building in. He declines Jesse's offers of water, or coffee, or liquor. He refuses to look them in the eye, but Gabriel knows the fire has not be quelled.

"I didn't think I could do that," is his explanation at debriefing, three days later when Jesse has to be wheeled into Gabriel's office at his side (he insists he can walk, but the nurses have him in one just to be sure). "It was just something I tried." He shrugs, and Jesse lets out a low whistle, commenting how cool it was. Genji smiles - an impish smirk, the first smile since he arrived at Overwatch's Swiss headquarters - but says nothing more, tight lipped for the rest of the session. No amount of suggestion from Gabriel will explain what they saw (or didn't see). Genji smokes silently from his fingertips, staring out the office window.

He is still full of knotted anger - it is only after missions that he quietens, restful and serene for a few days before the furnaces are stoked afresh. The battlefield refreshes him, lets him extend his claws and engulf others in his blaze without punishment. Gabriel tries to walk across the hot coals to reach what lies at Genji's heart, but the heat grows too great the closer he gets, and he is forced to retreat. Genji refuses to open up, letting his feelings brood inside until they erupt in the midst of a fight and he can take them out on enemy forces. He is clever like that.

"The dragon will never hurt those who don't deserve it," is his soft wisdom, imparted on the last mission they have together. He is pale in the moonlight, his forearms coated in ash that threatens to blow away on the night breeze. "We may be full of hate and anger, but we are righteous." Gabriel doesn't ask what he means. He doesn't get a chance to.

A freak accident is what Overwatch crumbles under. As he is blown to pieces, Gabriel sees the ghost of a dragon, writhing through the smoke and the flames.

\--

They cannot contain him. No one can cage him, for he is free and fast and alone, alone, alone. Alone in his fury and his hate. It boils within Genji, it laps at his insides and crawl out of his mouth in fiery breath, burning anyone who comes too near. He is alone, fearful in the dark ruins of Overwatch, nothing between him and the stars. They will come for him, he is sure. Gabriel and Jesse, they will come for him.

They do not.

He has to drag himself from the wreckage, a wraith in tattered clothing that barely hangs on to a human form. In the cold, he remembers before, their warmth when they were near him, how they would touch him without question, greeted him with friendship and respect - not like the others. The others feared him, feared the talons on his fingers and the fangs in his mouth. He can remember a time before even that when he had neither, where the only scales coated his right arm in tattoo form. Genji remembers that time too, even though the memories are scattered, ripples distorting them if he gets close enough to touch.

He remembers when his skin was solid and unbroken, save for cuts and bruises, his blood running red like any other human. Freckles dotted his nose and he felt the wind rush by his cheeks when he leaned out a car window, felt the soft fluff of fur under his fingertips when he petted dogs. He remembers wearing clothes that hugged him, that felt like woven fibres, that had texture when they lay against him. He remembers being tired, he remembers yawning with his cheek on his brother's shoulder, smudged ink on his fingertips and the glow of a phone screen hurting his eyes. The gentle patter of rain outside, the sharp edge of a sword, the soft breath in his ear that spoke only in apologies he cannot remember the words to.

And then there is nothing, only a rush of blue and green and cold, bone deep pain that threatened to tighten like nooses around his limbs. Every time the nightmare draws to a close, he wakes up to white, white, white and clear fluid pumping into (presumably) him. The nightmare always ends the same, staring at the ceiling with the soft beep of machines around him. He feels nothing. The void engulfs him.

Genji festers. With no Gabriel or Jesse to bridle his temper, he grows, shedding his poorly constructed person suit and expanding, devouring all in his path. No one can stop him. No one can help him. He revels in his freedom, and howls his pain to the stars at night, a wandering mass of ash and burnt flesh that constantly decomposes - regrows - decomposes again. The earth will not have him, and neither will the sea. They spit him back out, still breathing, and he lies under the sky, unwanted by the world around him. 

He cries.

He wipes his tears, and stands again.

By the Talon reach out to him, enticing him into their order, he is half wild already, a beast so used to roaming the forests and country sides of Europe (countries have no meaning to him) that he has a hard time confining himself to one place. They making offerings to him, as worshippers would to an ancient god - but this only serves to anger Genji more, and he strikes them aside. He is no god to be served. He is more than that, and less - he was alive once, and shall never be again, even as a heart still beats in his chest. Gods are not made to walk this lonely path.

They try to shackle him and bend him to their will, but the dragon devours the bonds they affix to his wrists. The fury rises in him again, as it used to when cold hands would try to touch those he cared for, and he lets it fill him up and bubble over - he thinks of nothing else, he exists as nothing else but a vessel for that anger. He is smoke. He is flame. He consumes them all, his body growing until their buildings cannot contain him, and razes every stone and steel beam to the ground.

Only then does he flee. The mountains call his name, and it is this way he runs. Forests flatten under the weight of his being, valleys echo with the roars of his hunts for food to sustain the hunger that ever gnaws his insides. He snakes on forever, his tail twitching across continents behind him as he crawls on his belly eastwards, ever hollow.

It is in the east that they catch him, finally. He has forgotten his name, he has forgotten the being known as Genji that he is supposed to be - he has forgotten that one time he walked on two feet and other beings greeted him with anything other than fear. They come for him, with ice and fire and a staff bound with two snakes that he recoils from. The staff sits in the hand of a doctor, who tells him she is sorry, so sorry for what he has become. He doesn't believe her.

She is sorry, she tells him, over and over, as they place the mountain atop of him and trap him to the deep, dark earth. His howls quake the rock and dirt around him, as he lets her know, his tongue lashing at the sides of his prison - _that's not good enough._

\--

The mountain is still most days. A legend tells of a great dragon that was placed within it, whose anguished bellows sway the earth from time to time, and whose emerald green teeth line the caves of the mountain's clouded peak. It is why, they say, no human ventures there.

But Zenyatta is no human, and he does not believe in such stories.

He comes on a pilgrimage of sorts, to spend a year with nature so as to better understand it. The mountain has few visitors - only wildlife and the occasional omnic such as himself dares to set foot. He does not scoff, but merely hums lightly when the stories unfold, unperturbed. Dragons do not exist, as far as his learning has shown him. They are creatures in books, in the bones of dinosaurs, and the minds of dreamers.

The earth does not shake with his presence. He is allowed to sit and be still every day, to be warmed by the sun's solar energy and feel the lushness of grass beneath his fingers. Above him, the trees stretch to touch the sky, their boughs providing shade or another view depending on his mood. The caves are only a retreat for rest, or when it rains - whilst the gems set into the walls are many, varied in size and shape and the hue of their green, they intrigue him little. He has seen many such stones. They are beautiful, yes, but they are not his to take, so he leaves them be.

Zenyatta is content to feed the birds sometimes, gathering crumbs for them to nibble from his fingers. Their songs pass the time, and lull him into the afternoon. He meditates with them pecking at the earth around him, sometimes finding stray seeds on his clothing. They are unbothered by his flesh of steel and the electricity that flows through his veins. There is no malice in the way they inspect his body, tiny claws click-clicking as they hop along his outstretched arm. Zenyatta identifies some of them, mostly meadow birds. Sparrows.

The day the sparrowhawk joins them, he expects the other birds to flee. To his mild surprise, they do not, merely parting their throng as the bird comes closer. It stops a short distance away and turns a beady eye to him, almost as if it is inspecting him too. One eye, then the other. He notes its ashen wings, the black on its beak.

He reaches for it, but it takes flight before he can get close enough to stroke its feathers. But the next day, it is back.

Zenyatta pays it no mind from then on forward. It mingles with the other birds, almost as if it is watching over them. It never feeds. He hums softly to himself as he spreads seeds and crumbs from a bakery at the nearest village - he makes the trek just for their loaves, to be spread to the birds above. The sparrowhawk ventures closer with time, hopping across the ground amidst the frenzy for bread that accompanies Zenyatta's ascent back to his usual spot. After the feeding, he meditates there, and it hops around him curiously, one beady eye always turned to him. Almost human, in that watchful manner, he notes. It is quite amusing.

Months passes, and dry leaves sweep over the mountain side. Zenyatta remains, tending to his outcrop, spreading crumbs for the creatures that remain. The sparrowhawk shadows him daily, sometimes rubbing its beak on his hand when it spies dirt between his joints. He is gentle when it allows him to touch its feather, his fingertips just dusting over its back.

"Are you lonely?," he asks, and it replies by moving to perch on his leg, talons hooking into the fabric of his clothing. "I know loneliness," Zenyatta lets it nibble experimentally at his thumb, inspecting itself in the metallic shine, "but I have made my peace with it. Nature can be my companion, just as much as my fellow beings. You can be my companion." This seems to please the hawk, who makes a sound for the first time - a low croon that is out of place in the mouth of a bird of prey. He doesn't question such things, particularly from one cloaked in ash already.

It is in the spring, when the sparrowhawk circles his head as he meditates, and hops ahead of him as he treads a well-worn path back to his resting place. It hops around him, as if trying to herd him in a different direction, its cries insistent.

"Would you like me to follow?," Zenyatta asks, soft and curious. One beady eye watches him closely, then the bird hops away, checking every few feet that he is following. He obeys, not questioning the path set out before him. 

It draws him on, to the mouth of a cavernous tunnel he had not seen before - and Zenyatta thought himself well versed in the misty mountain, his home for the past year - and skitters into the entrance. He pauses there, but the bird continues inside, looking back at him expectantly. A weight descends upon his shoulders as he steps into the tunnel's mouth, as if a great mantel has been laid upon him. He does not question it. He merely takes one step, then another, then he is following the bird into the darkness before them.

He follows it deeper and deeper. The entrance grows distant behind him, but the glow of his own mechanics and the gems that line his way like teeth give him enough light to see. The bird grows ahead of him until its wings press against the tunnel walls, and still he follows. Deeper and deeper into the mountain, where a wind picks up, whistling through the gaps in his armour as he steadfastly continues. It howls through him, threatening to snap and bite at his heels, teeth pressing into his legs. But he is undeterred.

The bird is gone now, but over the wind he can hear a distant wailing, a keening call that he must answer. Zenyatta forges on towards the sound - and, as he grows closer, it begins to fall down into cries, someone sobbing hysterically ahead of him in the dark. It grows quieter, quieter, sharp hiccups and choked noises that he continues towards. The wind has all but dropped, the mountain breathing around him.

He turns one last corner, and there - the sobbing is reduced to the sniffles of a child, curled up on the floor, ashen grey skin and a mop of grass-like hair, shaking and clinging to themself. They could be twenty five, Zenyatta thinks, but they look for all the world like they are sixteen. He approaches slow, crouching down before the shivering being.

"Are you alright?," he feels flames lick at his heels, almost as if they are tasting him, but he does not look down. Zenyatta extends a hand, "what is your name? Here, can I help you?" They shake before him. "You must be lonely." One eye peeks past a blackened hand, fingers wispy like smoke tendrils as they reach out towards him. Zenyatta take the hand gently in his, a low hum emitting from within him. It seems to soothe. "You don't have to be lonely any more, I promise," he offers his other hand, and the kid takes it, embers glowing in their eyes .

They walk back through the tunnel together. The wind does not pick up, nor does the bird return. Zenyatta learns the name of the burnt being beside him. He is kind with his words, with the soft tune of a lullaby he plays over his sound system. They are not alone.

Together they step out into the spring sunlight, hands clasped together - and for the first time since his fall, Genji feels the warmth of the sun touch his skin.

**Author's Note:**

> quick clarify - jesse and gabe dont die in the overwatch explosion, genji just doesnt know that they survive. and i dont hate mercy if it came off like that lmao? in this situ tho, genji is...not exactly a fan. and gabe is dubious. a lot of gaps are purposefully unfilled bc unreliable narrators.  
> i hope you liked it tho if you got this far?? comment or tweet me @genjifluid or something idk i love kudos


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